A part of the original University of Iowa Seashore Hall, built in 1899, will be demolished in early to mid December.

What was the longtime home of UI's Psychological and Brian Sciences school, and also the site or the University Hospital from 1899 until 1929, will soon be torn down to make way for a new 66,470 square-foot $33.5 million facility.

The part of Seashore that is set to be demolished will be the three-story brick structure that stands next to the parking lot at the intersection of North Gilbert Street and Iowa Avenue. That structure also includes a basement.

The adjoined six-story structure that's closer to East Jefferson Street will not be demolished until 2020, when the new facility is open, Wendy Moorehead, strategic communications manager for UI Facilities Management, said Tuesday.

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The sidewalk being tore up next to the University of Iowa's Seashore Hall in Iowa City is shown on Nov. 21, 2017.(Photo: Zach Berg / Iowa City Press-Citizen)

The demolition process will take roughly five weeks and could line up with winter break for UI students, Moorehead said. No exact date for demolition has been picked yet due to pedestrian path on the west side of Seashore being currently closed off as crews extend utilities from Van Allen Hall to Spence Laboratories of Psychology. The lab is connected to the part of Seashore that will be demolished.

Ruthina Malone, the department administrator for the Psychological and Brain Sciences department, said Tuesday that the structure had been home to the entire department's faculty and staff, but that they had been moved to other parts of Seashore last December and in early January. Some are also currently in other structures like Spence Labs.

A rendering of the new Psychological and Brain Sciences building at the intersection of Iowa Avenue and North Gilbert Street in Iowa City that's set to open in 2020.(Photo: Special to the Press-Citizen)

Malone said that it has been a "longtime coming" for the Psychological and Brain Sciences new facility and that the faculty and staff were "all very excited to have a new home."

Professor Mark Blumberg, department chair for the Psychological and Brain Sciences department, said that there will be "many things" the new building will allow faculty, staff and students to do.

"For the first time, students will have a place to congregate and call home," Blumberg said in an email. Modern laboratories, classrooms with proper air conditioning and heating and a place for the department to gather for talks are just some of the advantages to the new building.

Blumberg added that now the department will finally have "an attractive facility that doesn't repel prospective students and faculty."

This image from 1920 shows what was then the University of Iowa Hospital on Iowa Avenue. The building, now known as Seashore Hall, is scheduled for demolition over the next five to 10 years.(Photo: Frederick W. Kent Collection of Photographs, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.)

The history Seashore itself is long and complex. The structure was originally constructed in 1899 to house the University Hospital, according to the UI's website. The building was expanded drastically until the hospital moved across the Iowa River in 1929. It was then converted into research building and named East Hall. By 1981, East Hall was named after psychologist and dean the UI graduate college Carl Seashore.

The structure originally faced north towards East Jefferson Street, but it was altered and added to throughout the 20th century so as to move the focus towards Iowa Avenue.

Blumberg said that the history of psychological studies that have been centered around Seashore is extensive and features some of the most influential psychologists in history.

Albert Bandura.(Photo: Special to the Press-Citizen)

According to an article published by the American Psychological Association, the psychology department at UI has featured three of the top 20 most cited psychologists in the 20th century: Albert Bandura, described as the greatest psychologist alive today by the APA, graduated from the department, as did Leon Festinger, the fifth-most cited psychologist, and Kurt Lewin, Festinger's professor at UI and the man credited for founding social psychology.

Only Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner and Jean Piaget have been cited more than Festinger and Bandura.

Reach Zach Berg at 319-887-5412, zberg@press-citizen.com or follow him on Twitter at @ZacharyBerg.